WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Asakusa
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Veteran of the Northern Front ◈
Chapter 1: Prologue
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Whoooosh...
On a snow-covered mountain swept by a wind cold enough to chill one to the bone, a group hauled a wagon uphill.
Rattle!
Bound hand and foot and confined in the wagon alongside people dressed like beggars, I carefully opened my eyes.
‘What the f*ck is this situation?’
It had already been an hour since I regained consciousness, but I still could not make sense of what was happening.
‘I remember getting off work in a good mood, having a beer, and playing a game, but...’
Then my vision had suddenly gone dark. When I opened my eyes, this was what I found.
I had gone through plenty of wild experiences in the Special Forces, so even more than five years after leaving the military, it took quite a lot to surprise me.
But this was different.
‘F*ck, what is this?’
The men guarding the wagon and its surroundings were probably soldiers. For some reason, though, they were dressed like they belonged in the Middle Ages.
And that was not all.
I stole a glance at my hand.
The back of it was completely unfamiliar.
The moment I saw it, I knew.
This was not my hand.
That was right.
I was currently inhabiting someone else's body.
‘Whew. First, calm down and sort this out.’
I did not know how I had ended up like this.
I did not know where this was.
And I did not know who these people were.
But one thing was certain. I was being taken somewhere, and judging by the way I was being treated, I seemed to be a prisoner.
‘Can I escape?’
Untying my hands and feet would not be difficult.
The problem was the men standing guard nearby.
I counted the soldiers and did some quick calculations.
‘Four around the wagon right now, about five at the rear, and I can't tell how many are at the front...’
Assuming they did not have guns, the odds were not completely hopeless.
Just as I steeled myself, thinking I should look for an opening to escape...
Thud!
The wagon came to a stop.
“We're here!”
“Bring out the penal soldiers.”
“Yes, sir!!”
Though the language was clearly unfamiliar, the soldiers' words reached my ears as plainly as Korean.
‘Penal soldiers?’
That normally referred to soldiers who had once been convicts, didn't it?
As I frowned and updated my assessment of the situation, the soldiers forcibly dragged me out of the wagon.
“Move it! Get out here!!”
We were pulled from the wagon one after another, strung together by rope like a line of fish.
A massive fortress stood before us.
“Listen up, you vermin!”
A sinister-looking man at the front swept his gaze over the crowd and shouted.
“You are all criminals who deserve to die. But you have fortunately been given an opportunity to wash away your sins by devoting yourselves to the Empire. You now have two choices.”
“...”
“One is to complete the term of service assigned according to your sentence and earn your discharge. The other is to die and leave as a corpse. Until then, you...”
After letting the words hang, the man smiled chillingly.
“By the name of holy Skadi, I hereby proclaim that you will not be able to leave the Empire's Northern Front in the Elnes Mountains.”
The Elnes Mountains.
The Empire's Northern Front.
And the name of the god Skadi, which that man had just invoked.
As I put those three clues together, a familiar name flashed through my mind.
[Song of the Empire]
It was a monarchy strategy game about uniting an empire thrown into chaos by its emperor and corrupt officials.
I had played it whenever I had free time since before I came of age. I had never checked my total playtime exactly, but it had been around 5,000 hours the last time I looked, so it was probably close to 10,000 by now.
I was the kind of player who could be called seasoned, or even rotten.
Anyway, back to the point.
[Song of the Empire] was a game in the style of Ko*ei's Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
Peasant rebellions.
Barbarian invasions.
Lords battling one another for dominance.
In a nation that had become a complete mess, the ultimate goal of [Song of the Empire] was to develop territory, gather talented people, build a power base through war, and finally claim the imperial throne.
Having cleared that game thousands of times, I knew exactly how serious this situation was.
‘F*ck, the Northern Front?’
As if possessing a body inside the game was not bad enough, I had been dragged to the Northern Front, known among players as the Cold Grave and the Newbie Crusher.
And I was here as a penal soldier, no less.
Footnotes:
Ko*ei is a partially censored reference to Koei, the developer of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms strategy game series.
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